Things that you make go hmm

I don't know what's wrong with me.  Every new book that I pick up I feel like hurling across the room. Admittedly I did set myself the onerous task of reading Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell over the holidays. - three hundred characters.  Yes.  Three hundred.  Then there was The Stranger's Child by Alan Hollinghurst.  And someone who was raving about it gave me The Rules of Civility....oh dear.  Well, let me say that Dance to the Music (12 volumes.  Yep, 12) is going to have to dance on without me and Alan Hollinghurst who is a fabulous writer lost me on that one too... As for Rules of Civility - well, I don't feel like being very civil about it to be honest - Dominick Dunne dun it better guv.  Honest. Oh yes, and I read Pure which won plaudits and prizes galore and I was like - meugh...I've read better. So it's not that I haven't been reading (frankly that will never happen) but it's just that I haven't been inspired.  AT ALL. I even in a moment of desperation picked off the shelves an old Iris Murdoch - The Philosopher's Pupil. Crikey.I gave that a miss, too.
Then - thank goodness I went to swish bookish party at Waterstones in London and in my goodie bag was a freebie proof copy of My Policeman by Bethan Roberts. Hoozah and Hoorah! Finally - a great book.  One worth reading.
It's set in Brighton in the 50's and is an absolute corker. I don't want to give anything away - but do urge you to read it.  You'll LOVE it.

Holidays

Well, it's been a while and I do apologise... Holidays and life has got in the way and a general dearth of what I call GOOD books.  I knew I was in trouble when I was sitting at the airport waiting for a flight to Sicily and I realised that I had no shampoo or conditioner with me but I did have a lemon zester and seven paperbacks. Most of them old books that have recently been re-issued.  Holiday reading fills me with panic.  Madly dash around the airport books hop - NO.  I once relied on that at Heathrow and it was closed - can you imagine the horror? So I bought a load of Stella Gibbons old novels that have just been released.  Hmm, well... Oh dear.  I mean I know that if you're written a big stonking best seller like Cold Comfort Farm you probably never need to write another book - and really, I wish she hadn't - or that I had lower expectations of them and simply hadn't bought them. 'Nuff said.
However due to the joys of The Harpies (book club) I have certain prescribed books that i would never have normally read - A Visit for the Goon Squad is one of them - I adored it....and I am just about to start The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - yet another I would never have bought -so for that much thanks.  But  I find myself when going away always throwing certain books into the bag ( yes, I do see that a Kind;e would help here but I'm going to side step that issue for the moment) Saki, Waugh, Mitford, and Forever Amber are usually to be found in my luggage as you cannot rely on airports.  Heed the advice - do take some comfort re-reads with oyu!

Risotto with Nettles

Gosh, I love foodie books.  NOT cookery books (though I do of course like 'em) but books that lovingly recall forgotten meals along with memorable friends and relatives.  Of course *ahem* I wrote one myself, so I would, wouldn't I?  But Anna Del Conte who wrote Risotto with Nettles raises the bar.  The first thing I learnt which really surprised me was that whole towns were built in Italy to capture the sea breezes, purely for drying out pasta.  So whole streets had massive fringes of fresh spaghetti drying in the sun.  Must have been a wonderful sight... Also, fresh home-made pasta was in such demand and held in such high regard that women in the war would gather together over the kitchen table, often pulled out in a sunny square and make ravioli or tagliatelle to sell - and then with the money buy dried pasta to feed their families.  The food is mouth watering in itself but her life story is amazing too.  Shot at, nearly thrown in prison, her first job as an au pair in England, her marriage, her career as a cook are spellbinding.  And then, there's the irresistible pull of the Italian food. This is dear to my heart too, so much so, that I am off an a Sicilian adventure very soon to a cookery school in that sun drenched island of lemons.  No doubt I shall be making pasta but I sincerely I hope I avoid being shot at.
Oh - the jar next to the book is that wonderful thing that I make this time every year: Damson vodka - perfect for a Winter Twinkle cocktail (one part damson vodka, two pats frosty prosecco)

CULL

Yes, it's cull time again. I try to be ruthless.  Honest.  But then sentimentality gets the better of me.  Politeness, too.  I mean, I KNOW some of these authors and even if I'm never, ever going to read them again, I can't chuck them.  And then I'm vexed as to what to actually DO with 'em.  Yes, yes, of course I do charity shops...well, to be honest, I do when I can cajole someone with strong arms to carry them there.  Then we have the 'library' in the entrance hall where the top post shelf are full of the 7 flats here unwanted books.  The theory is of course that you 'borrow' one and replace one.  That's the theory.  In practice what happens is that it gets chock with unwanted Dan Brown and Jeffrey Archer (NOT mine I hasten to add)  Then I take a book bag to book club every month and dish 'em out.  Ditto to friends.  But even with all that I swear the pesky things are breeding.  Then, the other night, it happened.  The thing that I'd been dreading and yet expecting for some time.  An avalanche in the middle of the night.  A tsunami of books flooded the bed.  Crashing down on me (and Flo who really was no help at all.  In fact if I had ever thought that she would be any use as a guard dog, that theory was firmly quashed as her trembling body tried to wriggle under my pillow whilst making imploring yelps of distress.  Not growls of attack.) So, the bedside table is looking a little empty, the shelves are groaning, there are three book bags ready for the next strong armed friend to take to the shop and Flo is looking, well, a little more secure...

Penguin Classics

It's my own silly fault.  I was seduced.  Yes, yes, by the 'one click' on Amazon.  (I swear it will reduce me to bankruptcy) But those Penguin classics look so, well, classic. Who can resist them?  Also, and I lay my hand on my heart here, I thought that I would have binge of GOOD books. Now don't get me wrong there is absolutely nothing wrong with chick lit - or - women's contemporary fiction as we are all meant to call it now, Indeed, I have written books myself of that genre.  But I wanted something a bit more, well, classic... So, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers seemed to fit the bill.
I'd heard of her, and she also wrote The Ballad of the Sad Cafe, so I thought I was on to a winner.  But, then, oh dear... the eye started to skip paragraphs, the fidgiting got worse, and in the end I'm sorry to say I gave up.  But then, what a fool I was to think that I could appreciate it anyway.  Set in small town southern states in the fifties....that ALONE should have told me that it wasn't for me. I dislike the decade, I dislike anything to do with small town America, (unless of course it's Little Women) I don't want to read about mill workers, I have only the haziest of ideas as to what a Cotton Gin is (and frankly care even less) and then there is her talk of negro workers, which makes me squirm.
I perservered for a while longer, but the main protaganist is a deaf mute, the town is dreary, teh people are quite horrid and nothing much happens really....Or it hadn't by the time I gave up and irritably tossed it off the bedside table and reached with relief to Joan Wyndham and Dawn Chorus (another one click and SO jolly and uplifting I thank the book gods that I did)
Now, in the case of Carson I can say that I know it to be a case of 'It's not you, it's me,' as I know that she has been lauded, and still is, as a fantastic writer.  But definitely not for me.  If anyone wants it - just let me know and I'll pop it in a jiffy bag to you.

Keef!

Of course, it isn't called Keef, but it should be... Life by Keith Richards published by Phoenix is a whirlwind of read.  The question that's always, with unfailing regularity, asked about Keef is - HOW is he still alive? Shouldn't he be dead? Well, yeah, but that's rock 'n roll baby.  Actually he answers pretty early on why he's NOT dead.  Quality control.  Yes, you got it.  Quality control.  He's never been in the awful position of taking really, really cheap drugs - or as he puts it - 'Mexican shoe scrapings'.  Not our Keef.  It's TOP DRAWER stuff.  And - hold the front page - he's never mainlined.  He just banged it straight into a muscle. Phew, well that's OK then...
Keef comes over as rather a sweet old fashioned kinda boy.  I think we all knew a Keef when we were younger, he never made a move on you, but somehow you ended up in his arms.  Or bed.  And there have been many of the laideez in Keef's life, not least his rather formidable mum, Doris, who once told them all off in a studio in Jamaica for wasting time when they could be recording because 'this studio's costing money, now get on with it!'.
His infamous getting together with Anita Pallenberg after falling for her when she was still with the late Brian Jones is a lesson in pure hedonistic rock'n roll romance, involving hanging out in Morocco, driving through teh desert in a Roller, taking god knows how much drugs and booze and waking up in Tangier.
The rows with Mick Jagger remain, but they have been through so much together, seen and done things that us mere mortals will never comprehend that the ties are too strong to be broken.  They will forever be The Glimmer Twins.
That makes the book really readable, although I did skip the very geeky musico bits, the loving descriptions of so many different guitars and recording techniques are a bit dull but the back stage gossip and bitching makes up for it.
I'm off for a tequila shot and a dance round the flat to Brown Sugar....After all, I know it's only rock'n'roll but I like it. Like it.  Yes I do.

Bloody Vampires

Oh no.  Not another bloody vampire book I hear you groan.  Well, umm, yes.  Sorry about that.  The Twilight saga, True Blood and all the others that seemingly breed unchecked on the shelves have been joined by a new trilogy.  Well, new to me, that is. Kim Newman (a rather glorious eccentric figure himself and an utterly impeccable film buff) and his Anno Dracula series.  It seemed appropriate reading somehow.  It's an English summery weekend in June.  The heating's on, I'm wearing a jumper and the dog is warming my feet. Pimms?  No thanks, I'll have a hot chocolate with a slug of rum in it.  To warm up.
Let me introduce you to the world of London 1888.  Queen Victoria has sensationally remarried to the Prince of Darkness himself - the Wallachian Prince known as Count Dracula. His (polluted) bloodline is sweeping London as more and more people are choosing to 'turn'.  It's quite fashionable really.  Oscar Wilde turned, still hiding his bad teeth behind his hands.  Smoked glasses and the gothic look are affected by the fashioables.   Of course, all that rubbish put about by Van Helsing about garlic and crucifixes doesn't work.  Silver does though, a bullet or  scalpel, followed by ripping the heart (or any vital organ) out of the body. 'Newborns' who are not looked after are horribly burnt by going into the sun and have to go to a sort of Vampire rehab, knows as The Hall.  Some of the 'warms' are sympathetic to the dark side, but gradually London is turned upside down by the Vampires,  In the squalor of Whitechapel prostitutes sell their blood to hungry vampires, and gin sodden sluts tote children around on leads offering up their necks for a bite. A killer roams the streets in the shape of the Silver Scalpel - later known as Jack the Ripper.  But why?  With enough blood puddling the pavements anyway it seems a redundant occupation. There's a rather dapper spy - Charles Beauregard, a vampire patrician prime minister, a wonderful 450 year old heroine vampire Genevieve and a whole constructed world of darkness in the fog ridden streets of London.  Pretty compulsive.  Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm feeling a bit peckish...